Talk:List of chancellors of Germany

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Political Affiliation of Imperial Chancellors
The unofficial party designation for Chancellors of Imperial Germany is misleading. While it is a roughly accurate guide to the personal politics of the individual Chancellors they never had an affiliation with any of the parties in the Reichstag. Even von Bismarck, who could be considered an "arch-conservative", did not have any formal ties to the Conservative party. It might be more accurate to list the 'governing coalitions' or Reichstag majorities that each chancellor relied on to support their legislation.

Bismarck
For the image of Bismarck, it may be worth considering to choose an image from his time in office. The current one is from a time after he left the chancellery. 188.100.192.198 (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

East Germany
It is not appropriate to list the leaders of the DDR here - they were not "Chancellors". The run of Federal Chancellors is recognised as being continuous from Adenauer. Besides, they mess up the formatting. I have added an explanation to the modern section to indicate that the DDR had separate leadership, which was merged into the Federal Republic in 1990. This is all that is required. BartBassist (talk) 11:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Constitutionally, the DDR was absorbed into the West German state, which carried on as before with altered boundaries. It is therefore correct to show a single succession of chancellors from Adenauer to the present. 81.168.45.105 (talk) 11:27, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Picture Hitler
Is there any good reason why there is a lithography/painting instead of a photo? There are plenty of photos with undoubted licensing. --VonFernSeher (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Scheel not in the timeline?
I wonder why the short period as acting chancellor of Walter Scheel is not mentioned in the timeline. Goebbels "acted" just <1 day as chancellor and is shown. --134.110.31.95 (talk) 15:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Days in office
Excel gives some different days in office:


 * Kurt von Schleicher ... 56 ... -1
 * Konrad Adenauer ... 5,134 ... -10
 * Ludwig Erhard ... 1,140 ... -2
 * Willy Brandt ... 1,658 ... -1

The three minor discrepancies may come down to differences in the way part-days are counted. The size of the Adenauer discrepancy suggests that there is a mistake somewhere. 81.168.45.105 (talk) 11:19, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Two issues; title
Hello, I see two certain issues, aside from some minor things. The list contains not only "chancellors" but also bearers of other titles, such as "Reichsministerpräsident". That calls for a change of the lemma (article title). Second, seeing it now the introduction could be streamlined to matters regarding the title, and only very basically the function. The rest is explained in specific articles. Kind regards Ziko (talk) 22:38, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Chancellor to be elected by the 19th Bundestag
According to the German constitution (Article 39), the chancellor remains in office until the constitutive assembly of the next Bundestag, which must occur at the latest 30 days after the election. This means that Angela Merkel remains chancellor until then. After that It would be customary for Merkel to remain as acting chancellor until such time as the 19th Bundestag elects a new chancellor and they are appointed by the president. This means that Merkel's third term has not ended, and any statements about a fourth term are speculation (however likely it may be that Merkel will be elected and appointed as the next chancellor). Since 1976, as I understand it, even if the Bundestag is "dissolved" its current session continues until a new one is elected. --Boson (talk) 07:52, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 5 May 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved (closed by non-admin page mover) Danski454 (talk) 15:56, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

List of Chancellors of Germany → List of chancellors of Germany – Per MOS:JOBTITLES: "Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, grand duke, lord mayor, pope, bishop, abbot, chief financial officer, and executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically. They are capitalized... when a formal title for a specific entity... is not plural." Major style guides such as AP Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style explicitly state that "chancellors" should be lower case. Surtsicna (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per MOS:JOBTITLES. - ZLEA  T \ C 19:03, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per reasons stated. --Comment by  Selfie City  ( talk about my  contributions ) 20:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong support per MOS:JOBTITLES (and we should apply it to lists of "Kings" and "Presidents" too, as we did with List of mayors of Birmingham, List of lord mayors of London, List of mayors of Leeds, List of mayors of Cambridge, List of provosts of Aberdeen, List of chairmen of the House Republican Conference, List of prime ministers of Elizabeth II, and (most recently) List of governors of New York – each of those was the result of a formal RM, and many of those were multi-page moves). —BarrelProof (talk) 21:04, 7 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Germany before and after 1949
Hitler, whether you like him or not, is part of German history. Attempting to remove him out of history is not the best way for what is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia. This article makes it look like Germany after 1949 is a brand new country. This is not correct, no matter how hard people attempt to influence history. I recommend putting all the scales, graphs, tables, etc to show without the split (before and after 1949). 9XY (talk) 16:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Does Hitler have to be at the top?
I think it would be better to give Merkel the spotlight alongside the other Chancellors at the top and leave Hitler to be lower down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 21:28, 30 September 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EmilePersaud (talk • contribs)
 * Comment I think there is a case for doing this, mostly because Angela Merkel is now the third longest serving Chancellor in German history. Otto von Bismarck served as Chancellor for roughly 23 years, Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel for 16 years, Konrad Adenauer for 14 years. To contrast, Adolf Hitler was in power for 12 years. On the other hand there is also the question of historical significance, so this will definitely need further discussion to form a consensus on the mater. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:35, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

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Should Krosigk be on this list?
I'm reading elsewhere that, following Goebbels' suicide on May 1, 1945, Karl Dönitz offered the chancellorship to Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, but Krosigk declined and instead became "Leading Minister" on May 2. So, given that he was never actually Chancellor, I don't think he should be listed here. What do you all think? -- Hux (talk) 08:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)